


all the flowers in my house (are made of plastic)

by Lightning of Farosh (Medea_Nunc_Sum)



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Alcohol, Aromantic Hyrule, Asexual Hyrule, Asexual Warriors, Biromantic Warriors, Gen, Linked Universe (Legend of Zelda), Magic, Necromancy, Non-con Drug Use, Non-con touching, Positive Hyrule Fic, Smart Hyrule, The hylian version of it anyway, non-con kissing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-14
Updated: 2020-02-14
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:33:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22720288
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Medea_Nunc_Sum/pseuds/Lightning%20of%20Farosh
Summary: There's a sorceress in the woods who uses the power of lust to give rise to the dead.Too bad Hyrule's never really been interested.
Relationships: Hyrule & Warriors (Linked Universe)
Comments: 9
Kudos: 132





	all the flowers in my house (are made of plastic)

**Author's Note:**

> read the tags; protect urself don't wreck urself

Lights bubbled, popped, and burst through the crackling heat of a fireplace. They filled the laughter and cries drifting through the bar with something full of rainwater and heart blood. People cried out, their joy seeping into old wood as they lifted their jars and glasses to cheer something that would have made them roll their eyes if said by anyone else anywhere else.

They were all nothing more than drifting rocks that had gotten snatched from slow drift and tied to an anchor of gravity. The ground was reaching up for them, chewing at their sun souls until they were all just burning, greedy things.

One day they’d land or burn or fly away.

_One day._

Off in the corner, surrounded by games meant to take more than give, Hyrule grinned at Warriors’ weight against his shoulder. Blue cloth shifted against the back of his neck; cool in the fever heat of the bar. Half finished jars of milk sat on a small dark-wood table stained by knives, blood, and love.

The game under his hands pinged and pattered, singing as a small, metal marble shot up to clack against a couple wooden spinners.

“Look- _look_ —no!”

Hyrule laughed as hands gripped his shoulders, jerking him about while the ball rolled between the two little flippers he had been using to keep it in play.

“That’s not fair!” Warriors cried as the game pinged, the numbers at the top falling back to zeroes. “How're you supposed to hit _that_?”

Warmth settled in Hyrule's stomach, filling his marrow. He reached back to pat the hand on his shoulder, fishing a rupee out of the cup Time had gotten them earlier. “Keeps it interesting,” he said.

The heavy point of a chin rested on the crown of his head and Warriors sighed as the game lit up, fuelled by money and magic. Hyrule leaned over the glass, pulled the spring, and kept his eye on the ball as it pinged and bounced and sung. They were two spinning carousels that hadn’t learned how to stop, surrounded by blurred, darkened fairgrounds.

Laughter exploded behind them,, and Hyrule could just make out the sound of shouting. Someone bumped into them and was gone in the same instant. Warrior’s voice slipped between the clacks and metallic ringing, calling after them with more amusement than anger.

The numbers pinged higher and higher, Hyrule sticking out his tongue, eyes narrowed. Buzzing had settled deep in his wrists, swarming like a hive of pleased bees on a hot summer day.

Numbers fell into place, and the game sang out his victory. Warriors pulled away long enough to shout something that was answered with a raucous cheer. The smile that spread across Hyrule’s lips hurt his cheeks, but he kept his eyes on the marble. A high score had been painted on a block of wood next to the game and, as the score climbed higher, so too did his desire. 

It wasn't a matter of free drinks anymore, but of _pride_. He defeated Ganon, he could—

The ball bounced off some rubber, shot towards a metal cylinder, and he could do nothing but flip the flippers as it rolled down one alley that bypassed everything and down into _Game Over_.

Disappointment settled in his chest like a snowflake on his tongue, and he pouted at the glass as the numbers pinged at him and fell back to zero. The cold melted away in the next instant as arms wrapped around his waist, hosting him up, and Hyrule laughed as Warriors settled him on his shoulders.

“Free drinks!” The soldier shouted over the rising volume in the building.

The heroes at a table in the far end of the bar lifted their jars. Some cheered, cheeks pink and eyes bright, others, like Time, lifted their glasses in a quiet salute.

“Wait!” Hyrule said, his words punctuated by giggles as he was hoisted to a different section of the bar where more of the games waited. “Wait! The rupees!”

Spinning on his heel, Warriors snatched up the cup in one smooth movement.

Laughing as he was dumped in front of another game (this one with a maze full of holes and a couple of heavy, bone-coloured balls) Hyrule fumbled with the cup of rupees as it was shoved into his hands. “Really?” He turned to look up at Warriors, a glint in his dark eyes. “This one?”

“You’re stupidly good at these,” Warriors said, lifting his hands in surrender. “And, at this point, we won’t have to pay for anything.”

 _Except the games_ , Hyrule thought, biting down on a smirk as he handed the vender a handful of rupees. He accepted a basket in response and tested the weight of one ball in his hand. “How many points do I need to get?”

A finger pointed at a sign that was graphitised with images of jokes that must have been hilarious.

 _Just like a boomerang,_ Hyrule narrowed his eyes and swung his arm back.

The ground pulsed beneath him. Heavy bone _thunked_ as it landed on old wood.

Warriors laughed as he leaned down to pick up the ball. “Well, I don't think that's how you get points,” he said, smile on his face as he offered it to Hyrule. His grin faded, eyes flickering over the smaller hero’s expression. “What is it?”

Something purple and oily slithered beneath the floorboards, tugging on spider-web threads that had been so thin, so miniscule, and yet were everywhere. They covered the walls and the ceiling, the tables and the floor.

He followed the strands to the source and opened his mouth to shout a warning—

Glass blew exploded inwards.

Laughter choked on itself, ripping apart into screams like velvet antlers shedding into darkened gore against viridian forests.

The web spilling from the jugs of milk tightened and pulled, wrapping around throats and chests. Hyrule jerked forward, hitting the ground as Warriors grunted above him. Gurgling shouts bled together, mixing like watercolour paints that hadn’t dried. Roars pierced through the spinning, tumbling earth, piercing through the thick, underwater haze.

Hyrule blinked, the foreground tangoing with the background and could only watch as axes cut down the doors, sending sharp splinters across the floor.

His sword—

His _sword_ —

“Come on, come _on_ ,” words snapped against his ear, slicing through the silence. A hand wrapped around his bicep, tugging upward. “Get up, kid—”

Feet already rebelling, Hyrule stumbled into Warriors’ side and felt like a puppet with cut strings. The web crackled around his chest and he tangled it with his fingers, gritted his teeth, and pulled as hard as he could.

It blackened beneath his touch, withered like a tree in the winter, but held on.

“Magic,” he tried to tell Warriors, but the letters were melting like a sugary drink and slurred together. “Magic, it’s—”

“ _Steady_ —”

Blood splattered across the floor. A scream was cut off as steel bit through flesh. The web thrummed like guitar strings and Hyrule snarled at it.

Light shone off Warriors shoulder plate, his scarf spinning around his legs like a dancing serpent as he met a swinging mace with his blade. The sound rattled through every bone, every muscle, and settled in Hyrule’s chest like a rabbit hiding from a storm.

Arteries buckled and burst, blood welling beneath skin as magic pulsed and roared, twisting with all the hunger of a crocodile. The web was pulled, tighter and tighter, wrapped around a creature that dared it to hold on—

One strand snapped.

Something warm and black splattered across Hyrule's cheek and hair, dotting his skin like grotesque freckles. A roar of fury rose from his left and Warriors bright hair shone like starlight, his eyes narrowed, his teeth bared.

 _Let go of me!_ Hyrule wrapped both hands in the web, clawing as he pulled and pulled and _pulled_. His molars groaned as he clenched them, teetering towards the edge of cracking. _Let go! **Let go**!_

The magic warped, bent—

And shattered.

Colours shifted and spun, twisting around as he fumbled back, clawing for the basket. His fingers brushed against something that was cool and round—

One of the heavy balls flew, cracking as it hit a bokoblin in the forehead. The monster squealed as it collapsed.

Bodies littered the floor of the bar and the whole world separated like a cell before Hyrule swallowed, blinked, and focused long enough that everything became one again. Tables were cracked, glass scattered across the blood soaked floor. Patrons that had once been laughing were splayed across the games and wood, unmoving or scrambling away from the doorways only to be cornered by rusted steel and grinning maws.

The lights flickered, and Hyrule lifted his hand, pointing the palm towards the line of creatures. A wolf’s hymn waited on his tongue and was answered by the smell of abandoned campfire pits and half-sliced pines.

Magic burst from his fingers, slicing through the air like a burst of lightning. It carved through flesh and bone, leaving smoking, smothering holes behind. Bokoblins gurgled, Gumas shuddered, and bodies collapsed to the ground like dominos.

The rest of the hoard screeched and cawed, flinching back from the bitter, choking smell of magic. A daring few charged forward and were cut down by Warriors’ singing blade to cover the rest as they retreated out of windows and broken doorway.

Hyrule panted in the silence they left behind, weight settling in his legs and clinging to his neck. He stumbled, fumbled, and would have fallen if a hand hadn’t caught him by the shoulder. Looking up, he blinked, cataloguing the firm press of Warriors’ lips, the furrow of his brow, and the death that stained his scarf and tunic.

“Are you all right?”

Swallowing, Hyrule looked away from his friend. “Where—”

Gentle fingers took his chin, guiding his eyes back. “Are you _all right_?” Warriors said, tone firm.

Hyrule stared up at him, blood still roaring in his ears, and reached up to hold the soldier’s wrist. His body felt too big and small, taking up too much and yet none. “I—” he started, swallowed, and closed his eyes.

Fingers brushed through his hair, rested on the back of his head, and pulled him into a hug.

Breathing in the faint cedar-smoke of Warriors’ scarf, Hyrule sighed. “There was magic in the milk,” he said, and the words felt too heavy. Too _loud_.

“I know,” Warriors said.

Hyrule pulled back, looking up at him. “You—”

Grimacing, the soldier nodded towards the corner the rest of the heroes had been.

Something thick and bitter settled on the back of Hyrule’s tongue as he turned to look.

Half filled jars had been knocked over, packs splayed over the floor, and various weapons left, untouched by their owners or any curious hands. A blue hat sat abandoned next to a wolf pelt.

“They were unconscious instantly,” Warriors said, something frail hiding behind his tone. “There was nothing I could do.”

 _Except leave me_ , Hyrule closed his eyes. The web of magic still clinging to his ribs hissed as he burnt it to ash. “I—” he shuddered and felt his nails digging into his palms. “I didn’t even—”

“Hey, _hey_.”

Fingers pressed into his shoulder and Hyrule gritted his teeth but opened his eyes, looking up through his bangs.

The line of Warriors’ jaw tightened, his bright eyes dark. “This isn’t your fault, understand? _None_ of this is _your_ fault.”

Breathing in, Hyrule swallowed the words burning his tongue, closed his lips, and nodded.

His look unchanging—disbelief clouding his eyes—Warriors pulled back and looked over the carnage. “Think you're well enough to help find them?”

Hyrule tilted his chin up, steadied his knees, and let the nausea swimming in his stomach become fuel. “Yes,” he said.

“Then let’s get started.”

oOo

White flowers peppered damp, darkened wood creating miniature stars along a deep green sky. They seemed like the only flash of light in the darkness, creating a fae path through the woods. Hyrule brushed his fingers across a petal and it withered beneath his touch, the rest of the plant crumbling away into summer ashes.

The magic of it stung against the pads of his hands like lemon juice with just enough sugar that it hid how it bit away at his skin. He watched it fall and frowned, wondering on the ache it had left behind, as though he was living in a village on the border of two countries at odds and, yet, he knew the people on the other side of the river. They traded bread and smiles and laughter, untouched by the feuds of those who believed themselves to be bigger and, yet, knew that the storm cresting the mountains would change all of them.

Lifting his head, Hyrule tried to stare into the darkness, hoping that the spindly, claw-like shadows would whisper sacred secrets into his ear. It hovered, just out of reach, and he lifted his hand to follow—

Warriors passed him by, shy, silver light glinting off his shoulder plate. The soldier seemed too bright in this place of shadows, almost as if the sun had snuck its way into the midnight hours.

“There’s no branching paths,” he said, “so it looks like they’re all going to the same place.”

Hyrule breathed in and his thoughts shattered beneath the weight of spring rot. “Is that unusual?”

Blowing his bangs away from his eyes, Warriors glared at the gorges carved into the mud from talons and boots. “No,” he admitted, “but why take them in the first place? Why not just kill them in the bar?” Warriors looked up into the branches of the trees, his eyes sharp like the tips of swords and glinting like distant spears. “Why haven’t they bothered to hide where they were going?”

The easy answer was that they were monsters, that they followed strength and rarely thought for themselves.

(But monsters could be smart, could be persuasive, could set up _traps_.)

Hyrule rubbed the back of his left hand and stared at one of the small, white flowers. A long, cold winter settled in his bones and he shivered at a wind that wasn’t there.

“What is it?”

Looking up, Hyrule met Warriors’ heavy gaze. “There could be a different reason they might have been taken,” he said, words heavy on his lips and in his chest.

_Six years of running, of hiding, of blood smeared across his face and sword and arms._

Warriors stared at him for a long moment, breathed in, and sighed. “Well,” he said, “I guess we ought to find the others before they take all the glory for themselves.”

Laughter woven with surprise burst from Hyrule’s lips and he shook his head as a heavy arm circled his shoulders, tugging him down the path of mottled footprints and star-like flowers.

Perhaps it would be different this time, he thought, leaning into Warriors’ side. His eyes caught the sight of a small, moon-like shape in the dark. Two pieces of the abyss watched them, a smile stretched and half buried in the dirt. Twin white flowers peeked through eye-sockets and Hyrule shuddered, turning away from the bokoblin’s skull.

Even sharks have predators, after all.

oOo

The night stretched on, watching the two heroes from a distance as they followed the trail of flowers. A few corpses were half-buried in the dirt, too white to be old, too plucked clean to be new. Petals peeked through a column of ribs and stems wrapped around femurs, holding them in nature’s chains.

One of the moblins had their phalanges buried into the earth, jaw cracked open in a scream, body half swallowed beneath a blood-red rose bush. The magic of the grave dripped from the thorns, burrowing into the earth with heavy, thick roots.

Hyrule left them be.

 _Some other time_ , he thought. _Some other day_.

Warriors back tracked a couple of times, sword in hand, just to double check—but the trail never branched away, never faltered. It was a constant stampede forward.

They had no other choice but to follow it into the dark. Vines slipped like snakes across tree branches, and the air was heavy with the sour-sweet taste of pomegranates. Their lantern sputtered, fighting tooth and nail against the shadows even though it shrunk away from thick, inky darkness.

Howls reverberated through the silence, muffled and distant.

Hyrule shuddered, his breath catching in the back of his throat. Every scar across his skin itched and ached as though they were still full of the blades that had carved them. “This isn’t right,” he said.

“No,” Warriors murmured, his words shaped by an exhale. “No, this isn’t.”

Closing his eyes, Hyrule reached back and drew his sword. It sang in his hand, vibrating with the magic that smothered the night.

They continued on, step by step by step, watching out for broken twigs and lines of rope. A grinning, withered tree formed from the growing silver fog. It watched them with hollowed eyes and a half-consumed keese caught in its wooden jaws.

Hyrule pretended he didn’t see the shades of people he knew within the ground-level clouds and Warriors huffed, holding their lantern higher to fend off the phantoms.

“Do you see that?”

Blinking, Hyrule looked up from the torn mud to glance at Warriors.

The soldier nodded towards something down the trail. Purple light dripped like sap through the trees, turning the white flowers into something sacred and dark and corrupted. It revealed them in drops of careful poison, showing the bones of beasts trapped within their roots.

Hyrule held his sword out before him. “Yes,” he said, grabbing a pinch of his magic and spreading it across his eyelids like thickened oil paint. It dripped down his cheeks and over his lips, smoothing each breath as he opened his eyes.

Trails of faint, glowing blue-white light twisted through the forest, lining the floor and canopies in thin, but strong silk. They were in a web of woven spells and were getting closer to the middle with every moment.

“What do you see?”

Reaching out, Hyrule brushed his fingers over the strands and shuddered. Hundreds of thousands of eyes winked into existence, boring into his skin. They flashed silver, purple, blue, and faded into dust. “Magic,” he said, voice coming from nowhere and everywhere. “Powerful magic, I—”

Warriors rested a steadying hand on his shoulder. “Stronger than yours?”

Ice crawled up his legs with thin, needle tipped spider-legs. Hyrule gritted his teeth and struck at it with a rolled up bit of spell. “Yes,” he said,, and it was a half-lie. “But all strong things—”

“Have a weakness,” Warriors finished. He spun his sword in his hand and the tip sang as it sliced through the air. “Do you recognise the type?”

The _type_? Hyrule wanted to laugh, wanted to scream. “Death,” he said instead, the words shaking as they fell from his lips. “This is the magic of someone who meddles with death.”

Fingers tightened on his shoulder and Warriors’ inhale was sharp. “Well,” the soldier said, “I suppose we ought to put a stop to it.”

 _Yes_ , said the Magic Sword.

 _Yes_ , said the Moon, heavy in the night sky.

“Yes,” said Hyrule.

Warriors nodded. “Good,” his voice was solid like bread that had just come out of the oven. “How do you want to do this?”

oOo

Hyrule grimaced, splintered wood digging into his palms and knees. Thorns brushed through his hair as he crawled underneath one bush, wigging just far enough that he was on the edge of the silver-purple light.

White petals fell around him, fluttering like torn butterfly wings. He brushed them out of the way and looked upon the clearing.

Violet, pulsing cocoons hung from the branches of a massive tree, its branches twisted and naked, its bark withered and torn. Gnarled roots stretched through broken dirt as mushrooms and small lilac flowers grew through decaying, fragile things. Bones lined a pathway up to the centre; grinning skulls of bokoblins, moblins, beasts, and hylains watching any precession that would have approached the throne and its mistress.

White tusks grew from her lips, curling up over her jaw and were bright like moonlight against her dark, stone-grey skin. Black hair, short and swept to the side, was longer at the ears and braided with small, silver beads that shone with tethered magic. Pink scars lined her heavy, bare arms, jagged and curled like tiger stripes.

She was shadowed by the looming tree, but her broad form dwarfed the glowing cocoons, the rotting corpses of the bokoblins, and Legend.

He looked smaller without his massive blue hat, ruffled blonde hair spiked with drying, blackened blood. Phantom, purple tendrils—the shade of youth lost just before midnight—wrapped around his neck, wrists, and ankles. They burrowed into his skin with sharp, leech teeth, flickering in and out of existence.

Hyrule watched, his muscles revolting against the very idea of movement, as a nail dragged beneath Legend’s chin, tilting his head up.

Glazed blue eyes blinked up at ones that flashed a poison purple and his lips formed a word Hyrule couldn’t hear.

The sorceress smiled.

It was like watching a wolf rip open the neck of a deer, like a knife sliding through flesh.

He couldn’t tear his gaze away as she cupped Legend’s chin, tilted his lips up, and kissed him.

Sour decay burst through the clearing, filling up the cavities in Hyrule’s sinuses. His eyes watered, his stomach revolted, and for a split second, he wondered if he would throw up at the taste of it on his tongue. The surrounding flowers shuddered in joy, uncurling as the magic of life washed across them.

Legend jerked and gagged and twisted, his skin stretched too thin as the enchantment dug deeper, held tighter. He was flung like a toy away from the throne and shuddered on his hands and knees, blood dripping from his nose, curling down his chin, and landed in the dirt.

“Your magic,” she said, voice rolling through the clearing like a stream. “It tastes so _good_ , boy.”

Legend coughed and shuddered, the lower half of his face a grotesque, crimson mask.

“I’d keep you forever if I could,” her voice turned into a low, rumbling purr. “But we have _visitors_.”

Something thick and wooden wrapped around Hyrule’s leg and his eyes widened. Twin yelps tore through the bushes as plants ripped two heroes out of their hiding places and dragged them over thorns and roots before yanking them into the air.

Hyrule hung, his shirt falling over his abdomen as gravity tugged on it and his hair. He spun in a slow circle and met Warriors’ wide, crystalline eyes.

 _Oh,_ he thought. _Oh, **fuck**._

Bones rattled in corpse-like laughter, and the sorceress stood from her throne. A patchwork skirt fell across her legs and the leather clothing her torso did nothing to hide the fact that, even without magic, she could crush his skull between her massive hands.

“The _other_ two,” her voice dripped like honeyed venom from sharpened viper fangs. “I’ve been waiting for you.”

Warriors jerked as her fingers brushed through his hair, tangling with the strands, and tugged his head back to bare his neck. The blue scarf fluttered like the tail of a kite caught in the grass, waving back and forth beneath them.

“Your friends will keep me fed for a long time, but _you_ —” Her eyes flashed violet, glowing in the long shadows of her face as she released Warriors and wrapped her fingers around Hyrule’s neck. “Your magic will satisfy my plants for _eons_.”

There was a dog-like choking noise from Warriors and Hyrule clawed at the thick, orc skin, eyes rolling back as air tried to squeeze through her hold on his throat. Rose red flames crackled across vertebrae, crawling up his skin and sinking into his marrow. He jerked in her hold, his soul howling against the enchantment as it worked through his heart and tried to fasten fishhook claws into his lungs.

(It was looking for something, digging through his memories, his dreams, his future, trying to tug on heartstrings like they belonged to a guitar to play a song that didn’t sound right.)

Hyrule gurgled, darkness curling around the edges of his vision, cigarette smoke made of arsenic swirling, spinning, consuming his thoughts until there was nothing except the maw opening wider and wider—

Lips dragged against his cheek and veins popped, blood pooling under his skin as she breathed in the sound of his agony.

Foreign magic clasped around his sternum, trying to hold on like fingers around fish scales.

“Give in, little witch,” the sorceress said against his lips and her words tasted like Death. “Bow before Raega.”

Buzzing spread along his arms and Hyrule’s chest lurched as his fingers loosened and dropped, unable to hold on. Fingers trailed down his abdomen, tracing the line of his stomach to his sternum.

 _No_ , Hyrule gritted his teeth, using every bit of his consciousness to focus on her blurred outline. **_No_** _._

The red shuddered as desert-green sliced through it, shattering the enchantment into pieces.

Raega lurched back with a hiss, letting go as if his skin burned her flesh.

Hyrule swung back and forth, gasping and choking as he tried to pull air back into his lungs. Colours blended together like an abstract painting, shapes warped and twisting into violent forms that steadied that smoothed. A roar thundered in his ears and he pulled his arm back, flinging out his arm—

White light spun out of his fingers, spinning into a boomerang. Wood cracked, splintered, and something wet hit the ground.

“You little _shit_!”

Hyrule gasped, each of his breaths a whistling wheeze as a hand reached over and steadied him. Warriors was split into two images that tangoed before coming together. His eyes were wide, his mouth open as if he wanted to speak, but all the words refused to come.

Realisation had bled across his features and Hyrule could only blink, his thoughts tumbling and tripping over each other as they scrambled out of the fog in his skull.

The vines snaked further along Hyrule’s legs, wrapping around his torso and hoisting him up. His head fell forward, chin resting against his chest as he shuddered. Glowing purple liquid pulsed along the ground and his eyes were drawn to it.

Sky laid in the slime, surrounded by withering vines, unmoving and silent.

(Hyrule couldn’t tell if his chest was moving.)

The other cocoons swayed in the tree, rocked by the impact his spell had made against the wood.

Nails dug into Hyrule’s cheeks, turning his head so his eyes were forced to look into the blistering violet pupils of the Sorceress. Her teeth were bared in a snarl, and she dug her fingers into his flesh until blood welled beneath her touch. Heat dripped down Hyrule’s neck and he swallowed around the sand-paper roughness in the back of his throat.

“You,” she hissed, “How? There’s nothing special about _you_.”

He grinned with bloodied teeth. There wasn’t, but he stomped down on that thought.

Raega sneered, paused, and smirked. Purple light formed along her nails and she pulled her arm back, aiming for his chest.

Wood snapped behind him and the vines went limp, cut down his spine. Hyrule landed on his hands and knees, rolling out of the way as Warriors bashed forward like a bull and rammed his shield into the Sorceress’ chest. He stood between the two magic users, eyes reflecting the glow of clearing.

Hyrule scrambled to his feet, lifted his hand, opened his mouth—

No sound left his throat.

“Do you like it?” Raega said, spreading her arms. “I made it so no man could speak in my sanctuary. A gift for women everywhere, I assure you.”

Hyrule gritted his teeth, swallowing down on every spell that needed his voice as purple energy spun beneath his heels.

He fled as dark energy struck where he once stood, but the earth burst out from under his feet, flinging him up and into the wide trunk of the tree.

Bark and wood broke under his back and Hyrule gasped silently, sliding to the forest floor.

Silver and blue darted forward, Warriors using the mud to slide past Sky and swing his blade up—

It screeched against transparent purple, sending white sparks through the air. He swung again and again and _again_ , the spell cracking beneath each of his blows.

“ _Insect_ ,” Raega stepped back, lifting her hand like a claw. The ground shuddered beneath them, plants twisting and braiding together, picking up skulls and bones to create vibrant, macabre creatures. “I don’t have time for _you_.”

Hyrule flicked his wrist, summoning his magic wand and shrinking it in the next moment. He watched as Warriors stepped around the first of the monstrosities, blade digging in to thick wood and heavy vines.

Pointing the wand at his throat, Hyrule closed his eyes. _Find it,_ he willed. _Find my voice._

A silver-green ball of magic pulled away from his neck, hovered above the round tip of the wand, and darted off into the darkness. He watched it flutter between the skulls, gritted his teeth, and forced himself up to his feet.

Glowing, violet eyes turned to him.

Lifting the wand, Hyrule pushed his magic through the wood. Flames braided into a column, arching through the air.

They splattered against purple sigils.

“Stored magic, _really_?” Raega laughed from behind her shield. “It’s the child’s toy of spell casting, dear!”

Electricity sparked, shifted, and Hyrule felt his skin burn as an explosion knocked him away with all the force of a giant slapping his torso. Roots caught on his tunic as he slid and mud slipped beneath his hands and heels, catching him into a slick embrace.

“Here’s,” lifting her hands, Raega surrounded herself with twisted, shattered sigils, “what _real_ magic looks like!”

Hyrule scrambled to his feet as they exploded, shooting towards him like sharpened, deadly stars. They scattered at his heels, nipping at his boots. One caught along his shoulder, slicing through his flesh.

Blood spilled from the wound, dripping down his arm.

He jumped over a bridge of roots, slipping across moss as he spun around, flinging out the wand. Balls of flames hailed upon a pulsing, violet umbrella, splashing like napalm, oozing over sigils with the consistency of lava. The grass curled in beneath Raega’s feet, blackening from the heat.

Magic darted around the clearing, hopping from skull to skull, winding between the cocoons, the branches, and the swaying, hungry flowers. It slipped under Warriors’ scarf, dodged around bones wrapped in vines and stems, and ducked beneath a singing sword.

Rolling out of the way of two more purple blasts, Hyrule swung his arm, grimacing as a blast of wind swirled past his hand, dragging thorns over his tunic and shredding the fabric. It broke around the shield, slipped around the edges, and caught Raega in the chest.

She grunted as it pushed her onto her back.

_A second. A second. Nothing more than a second._

_Think, Link. **Think**._

His hands fumbled with the bag at his hip, fingers shifting through spell components that ached and burned and wanted his _voice_ —

The small dot of green-silver magic burst into a thousand sparks. They fluttered down and covered a small, stone statue.

Hyrule ran for it, ducking away from the plant-zombie that reached for his tunic, sliding across the forest floor, gouging canyons through the mud with his knees. Warriors stepped between him and the creatures, mouth open in a wordless yell, blood dripping down his cheek.

Nettles carved across bruised knuckles as Hyrule reached past a curled bush, slicing through his wrist as he snatched a man with stitched together lips, hands folded in prayer. Blood from a creature long gone stained grey toes, and the crown had been caked with flaking bits of soil. He smoothed his thumbs down the sides, turned it over in his hands.

A jagged, crooked sigil for a long term enchantment had been carved at the base.

 _Destroy it_ , his magic hissed. _Destroy it!_

Hyrule lifted the stone, ready to bash it against the ground.

Mud erupted beneath his feet, circling his legs, wrapping around his torso. It shaped itself like into clay fingers before hardening around his ribs. Hyrule screamed, the noise stolen from his throat, as it wrenched him into the air. His throat ached, air stinging against the back of his throat as he gagged at the taste of copper.

Laughter spilled through the clearing, chorused by the clacking of bone that tried to mimic the sound. Raega stood in the middle of it all, magic blossoming at her feet. “I suppose,” she said, walking back up the steps to her throne, “that you might have proposed more of a challenge in a fair fight.”

Rock tightened around Hyrule’s ribs.

His head fell forward, forehead against the stone as ribs ground into lungs.

Raega stopped by Legend, her knees by his blood soaked hair as his arms shook from holding up his own weight. “But I’ve never been interested in fair fights,” she said, reaching down to pick him up by the collar.

Legend was lax in her hold, crimson dripping down his chin, eyes like marbles.

Frozen, held, with the aches in his body pulsing like sentient creatures trying to crawl out from his flesh, Hyrule watched as Raega tugged the other hero close and cradled his chin with gentle, careful fingers.

She looked up at Hyrule as she dragged her tongue with universal slowness over Legend’s lips, licking off the blood.

The world shuddered and the flowers around the clearing straightened, white petals brightening until they were small dots of stars. Kicks against the stone hand did nothing, and the clearing was shrinking, expanding, and warping into everything and nothing.

 _Please_ , he prayed, choking on the iron in his lips and the fog in his skull. _Please_.

Silver, blue, and yellow darted out of the corner of his eye and he caught sight of the blur throw something small and black and round—

An explosion broke through the world, shattering the night and stone and the darkness trying to worm its way in. Hyrule wheezed, inhaling as the hand crumbled around him.

“No!” Raega cried, her voice muffled by the storm of red, orange, and yellow.

Wind whipped past Hyrule, howling in his ears. Tree branches passed slow enough he could count them, reaching to catch his tunic. Leftover flames were moulded into balls that stared at him from the darkness before they rained upon the clearing like meteors.

 _Destroy it,_ a voice buzzed through his skull.

Hyrule flung out his hand with all his strength—

And threw the statue into the fire.

Something cold and dark and sticky broke upon the night like glass. An empire crumbled into dust, a forest was razed to the ground, storms that had raged for so long finally soothed, finally calmed.

“NO!” Warriors screamed, his voice the first thing to dawn upon a new age as he ran across the clearing, face painted with watercolour fire, his eyes turning gold beneath the sudden, blazing light.

An explosion rocked the trees, knocking him and Raega off their feet.

Natural silence settled around them, sinking into the mud and grass. Smoke billowed from the impact of the fire, twisting towards the sky in grey columns.

They twisted, they arched—

And in the middle, floating three feet off the ground, was Hyrule. A faint, green aura surrounded him, pulsing and thrumming as he opened his eyes.

His pupils and irises were swallowed up by a white void and wind whipped through the clearing, tugging at his matted, mud caked hair. Four other voices lifted with him, ripping through the sky and the earth and the water and the dark.

“ _Do ra mo nacta sceen toola more—_ ” they chanted, rising higher and higher. Leaves were stripped off the trees, spinning into a thunderous, furious tornado. Sky’s limp form slid along the mud, nothing tethering him to the ground as he was pulled by the howling winds. The sky broke open, a column of pure light struck down to surround him.

“Link!” Warriors cried, a rock flying past his head to join the fray. His scarf whipped around him, snapping like the jaws of a beast. “Link! _Stop_!”

“I will kill you, witch!” Raega howled, the sigils stacking and coming around, aiming one long beam of light at the green, glowing figure.

Hyrule gritted his teeth as curled fingers used his ribs as a ladder to climb toward his throat. They slipped across blood-soaked bone, digging in their talons as they found no purchase, and leaving behind gashes of purple of bruises that pulsed with white and black and grey. A two-shaded green beast with a serpentine head, two ebony ram horns, and a mane of ivory roared and struck the enchantment down, ripping it from his chest with teeth that were the shade of heavy storm clouds.

It whispered no magic, it sang no fight song—it was merely there. Unbothered. _Unmoved_.

Unchanged.

Gasping, Hyrule watched as it took the violet that had been left behind, shaped it into long evening nights, into laughter in a tavern, into smiles shared between bookshelves. The purple-black-white spiralled together again and again and _again_ —and the essence pawed the ground, brushing against the wounds in his spirit, closing them.

 _Not alone_ , the magic said, pressing against his sides. _Never alone._

Hyrule looked down at Raega.

The air cracked when he vanished.

He reappeared, sliding across the mud, and a shield made from the magic of lust swirled to block his hand.

The energy shattered beneath his palm, turning into shards of glass that vanished into swirls of dust. Lightning sparked, curled, and struck, hitting the sorceress in the chest and forcing her back. Leather cracked, black smoke rising from the centre of Raega’s chest as she reached out to touch—

Lifting his hand to the sky, Hyrule pulled down the light from the heavens. They came together, becoming one beacon that drew a sigil of light across the clearing. It crackled, it popped, and magic pulled from the lines beneath their feet created electric steel. The blood in his veins _sung_.

Violet eyes widened, staring up at the weapon that spelled out Raega’s destruction. It would be swift, but it would not be kind.

A lifetime of being different roared in his ears and across Hyrule’s skin as he flung the lightning bolt towards her.

“Link! Don’t!”

A green tunic darted in front of Raega, arms splayed open—

The magic stopped in its tracks, wind billowing from the force of its halt. Warriors stared down the snapping, furious green to look up at Hyrule. His face was dotted in blood and mud, his sword caked with decaying plant matter.

“You can’t kill her. Not like this.”

Hyrule took a step closer. “Get out of my way,” his voice echoed through the trees like the hunting horn of a god.

Warriors didn’t move. “If you kill her when you’re like this,” he said, “you’ll never forgive yourself.”

A scream ripped through Hyrule’s throat. It was full of anguish and fear and the spinning, swirling emotions that had settled inside his heart that evening. The bolt of lightning imploded and shattered, breaking into a hundred thousand smaller pieces that threatened to turn Warriors and Raega into pincushions.

“ _Link_ ,” his tone was soft, exasperated, _fond_. A friend talking to a friend, a brother to a brother. “This isn’t you. You know this isn’t you.”

Hyrule’s eyes flashed, turning away from Warriors to look at Legend and his blood crusted face, his glazed, blank eyes, and the leaves tangled in his blonde hair.

“You’re the type of person who finds rupees on the ground and looks around to see if anyone has lost them,” the words drifted like a feather in the eye of a storm, careless and free, unbothered by the raging winds around it. “You cry during stories that aren’t even sad because you have a soft heart. And you do things that scare you even though you’ve never needed to which makes you so, incredibly _brave_.”

Lightning flickered, wavered. The rage across Hyrule’s face melted away as his shoulders shook. Tears formed in the corners of his glowing eyes, glistening like crystals.

“I get it, I _do_ —and I’m _so_ sorry.”

The magic faded into borrowed stardust that drifted back up towards the night sky and Hyrule gasped, blinking away the light in his eyes as he fell to his knees. He shuddered, fingers digging into mud as he swallowed the heavy lump in his throat.

Before him, Warriors sighed. “There you go,” his voice was softened with kindness. “Deep breaths.”

Hyrule looked up at him, taking in the warm smile across his features and the violet eyes at his back. _Just once more_ , he begged, flinging out his hand.

Warriors eyes widened, and he scrambled out of the way.

“ _Sleep_ ,” Hyrule ordered.

Raega fell to the ground, unconscious.

“Right,” Warriors looked back at her, “Thanks.”

It took every single last ounce of strength left in his body for Hyrule to push himself up to his feet. He swayed as though weights had been tied to his arms and rubbed his dirty hands down his face, masking his features with mud.

He’d been dumped in worse before and it was cold against his flushed skin. The white flowers around the clearing had dimmed, defeated at last.

Warriors’ sigh was heavy and his sword whispered as it slid back into its sheath. “What do we do about Miss Kiss A Lot? She has to answer for her crimes but...”

But very few prisons could contain a necromancer.

Exhaling, Hyrule could taste the blood in his teeth and the sour bruises forming on his neck. When he spoke the words were hoarse and quiet, jagged around his tongue. “I can... take her magic,” he told warriors, staring up at the cocoons rather than looking at the other hero’s face.

“You— _what_ —”

“I can take it,” bitterness clung to his molars, bile climbed up the back of his throat. Hyrule tried to swallow the tears, but they carved gouges down his mud caked cheeks, anyway. “I don’t—I don’t _like_ doing it because who-who am I to decide—”

His breathing cracked, on the verge of breaking.

 _(If you are to learn this magic,_ a voice whispered in the back of his mind and he watched a phantom of a wise man in his memories cup his chin. _Then you must learn how it feels_.

And the spell ripped through him, tearing apart his very soul as it stole and it stole and it stole until he had nothing left to give. He had sobbed on the floor of the sanctum, vomit dripping down his chin, blood pouring from his nose as he scrambled and dug for the part of him that was missing.)

A hand landed on his shoulder, chasing away the memory.

“But you can if the person is dangerous enough,” Warriors murmured.

Hyrule nodded, eyes on his feet. “It’s a fate worse than death,” he said, shuddered, and closed his eyes. “But if she has a soul gem—”

“A soul gem?”

“An artefact that will bring her back to life,” Hyrule dug his fingers into his arms, nails catching on the fabric of his tunic.

Warriors squeezed his shoulder and pulled away. “Do it,” he said.

Looking up at him, Hyrule took in the steel of his gaze, the hardness in his jaw. He breathed in, held the air in his lungs, and exhaled. White light bled across his eyes once more, this time more green around the edges, softened by the tight leash he held around the shuddering magic.

It entered Raega’s mouth and nose, filling her veins and arteries, sinking into her cells. He breathed in the angry, thrashing violet and exhaled slow, patient green as he pulled and pulled and _pulled—_

Magic shuddered and broke away, wrapping vine-like arms around his lungs and heart. It was swallowed by his own like a heart in the jaws of a wolf and he followed the lines of violet as they pulsed, hummed, and was surrounded by a vibrant green. Ribbons of it were wrapped around Legend and the older hero looked up with desperate, undeterred _want_ —

Hyrule sliced the spell in half and jerked at the sudden smell of sea salt, of a flash of red, and the call of a seagull.

Legend’s eyes rolled back, and he collapsed in the mud.

“Let’s get them out of here,” Warriors said at his shoulder.

Look up at the pulsing cocoons, Hyrule lifted his hands.

The magic of a necromancer howled as it was claimed, at long last, by death.

oOo

Rain pattered against a window, thunder rumbling in the sky. Hyrule watched light flicker and dance, igniting the valleys and mountains of the clouds. Violet energy curled around his fingers, darting across his palm with small hooves, tossing its equine head. It snorted at his thumb and took off into the dark, prancing through the air over the heads of sleeping heroes.

He could taste the rose-petal sweetness and fungus touched life it left behind and sighed, calling it back with wiggling fingers.

The mattress beside him shifted and the figure beneath the blankets groaned.

Legend sat up, holding his head. The blood had been washed from his face and his mud stained tunic was hanging to dry with the others, leaving him in just a pair of too-big trousers. Bruises dotted his chest and ribs, shaped like rope and hands and Hyrule wanted to reach out and give him another gentle boost of healing.

His magic grumbled, sore, so he let it be.

“How’re you feeling?” He said instead, keeping his voice low.

There was a grumble from one of the other beds, anyway.

“Like shit,” Legend rasped. His hair hung in front of his eyes and he brushed it out of the way with impatient fingers. “What happened?”

Hyrule searched slow-blinking eyes, the hollowness to his cheeks, the dark bruises beneath his eyes. He stood from the chair without thinking, climbing up onto the mattress next to Legend and pressing their shoulders together. “It’s a long story,” he said.

The door to the room opened and Warriors slipped through, a bowl of fresh water in one hand and a rag in the other. He glanced over at them, gave Hyrule a nod, and settled next to wind to wipe black goop from his arm.

“I have time,” Legend leaned down and rested his cheek against brown hair. The strands had dried and were crusted with sweat and dirt but he breathed it in and sighed.

“Okay,” Hyrule murmured, hooking their arms together, “ _okay_.”

A flash of lightning cast pale, silver light through the room and Hyrule spoke with a low, soft voice, telling the tale of a sorceress who used love and death magic, of a group of heroes, and a silly little witch.

**Author's Note:**

> WHAT A VALENTINE'S DAY GIFT EHHH???
> 
> the word limit was supposed to be 3k but i just slam dunked that out of my way (it was an accident i swear!!!)


End file.
